Possibly Still in Use.
This is because the Part 3 questions of Topic 372 look very
similar to the questions of Topic 310 and people are still reporting that
the current "television" topic includes, "and explain what you "learn" or
"learned". In other words, Topic 372 might not exist and Topic 310 might
still be the one in use now.

I also added a past tense Version
B for Topic 310. I did this after I made the screenshots of changes so that
change will not appear in the screenshots.

The wording of Topic 370 was
changed.

Topic 362, "An
Enjoyable Place in a City or Town" was deleted. The Part 3 questions that were with this topic
were moved to Topic 370, "An Interesting
Public Place".

October 21, 2011

Topic 279,

A Person You Helped

(3)

has been labeled as

(Probably no longer used)

Topic
283, Something Expensive You Bought

has been labeled as

(Probably no longer used)

Topic 321,

A Happy Childhood Event (3)

has been labeled as

(Probably no longer used)

I have labeled Topic 327,

A Historic Building as

(Probably no longer used) because the last confirmed reporting of
this topic was for the August 27 test.

Many of the topics that entered the test in January this
year have not been reported as used in the past 4 tests. See
TOPIC_USAGE_2011_P3.htm. I am labeling some of them as

Possibly no longer usedfor the moment and if any of these are not reported after the
next test, I will label them as

(Probably no longer used).

Recently, people have been reporting, "A television
program" as their Part 2 topic, with no mention of the word, "educational".
This might indicate that Topic 310,

An Educational Television Program

has been retired and has been replaced by a new topic, Topic

372, which I am calling, "A Television Program You Like". However,
this is not clear so 310 has not yet been labeled as

Topics 306 and 312 seem
to have been reported for the Sep. 17 test but this might have been a
mistake. For now, I am not labeling them as Possibly No Longer Used.

September 7, 2011

After the test of Sept 3/4, I have added eleven new Part
2 topics, Topics 352 to 362. Quite possibly one or two of those are mistakes
and will later be deleted. And certainly the wording for some them will be
changed in the future.

Topic 281, A Practical Skill, was labeled
as (Probably no longer used).

I think Topic 298 A Gift You Gave is still
in use but every now and then someone writes that they got a topic, "Describe
a gift you would like to give to a friend". Later, I might add that
as an unconfirmed Part 2 topic.

There are some hints that the following new Part 2 topics
exist but these hints are not strong enough yet for me to add them to the
list of new topics:

1) a game (probably this was the sport topic)

2) a hotel (probably this was a Part 3 topic for one of the "travel" Part 2
topics)

3) a factory (this was probably the "small company" topic)

4) relaxing (probably Part 3 for the "leisure centre" topic.)

August 4, 2011

I think Topic 298 A Gift You Gave is still
in use.

Topic 142 has been changed from A Garden or Park
to A Garden.

The last line of Topic 315, The Oldest Person You
Know, has been changed.

The wording for Topic 336, A Walk has been
changed slightly. [I don't think this topic is "A Walk with a Friend"
although this topic does ask you to say who you walk with on your regular
(or frequent or habitual) walk.]

A new topic has been added: Topic 351, A Trip that Took Longer than Expected. There is
a small possibility that this is a mistake but I think it is a new topic (or
a return of Topic 206).

June 16, 2011

Most of the topics from September 2010 have not been
reported as used in the past four tests and a few have not been reported for
the past five tests. One has not been reported for the past six tests. I
have labeled these as Possibly no longer used, which
is being a little cautious because they have probably already been retired.
But since they have only been in use for nine months, I will wait to see if
any of them are used in the next test before labeling them as (Probably no longer used). So, there's still a small
chance that some of those topics will be used again in the next few tests,
but it's only a small chance.

Topic 302 (Advice) has not been
reported for six tests and the following have not been reported for five
tests: Topic 287 (Celebration), Topic 300 (Broken thing), and Topic 301
(Family Member). Usually when a topic has not been reported for four or five
tests, it has been retired.

The following two topics from
September are definitely still in the test at the moment: Topic 279 (Someone
You Helped) and Topic 283 (Expensive thing). Topic 281 (Practical skill) is
probably still being used now but this is not certain. You should pay
attention in case the "help" topic suddenly changes to "Someone who helped
you". Although these topics are still in the test now, it is uncertain how
long they will stay before they are retired. It would be best to assume that
they will stay until the end of August.

I have labeled Topic 277, An
Interesting Job as "Still in Use" but this might be a mistake.

I have also deleted Topic 340, An
Interesting Animal.

May 31, 2011

I have returned Topic327 to the
name, "A Historic Building", not just "A Historic Place".

The wording of Topic 337, "A Magazine or Newspaper"has been substantially changed.

Topic

349,A Friend You Would like to Give a Gift to
has been deleted. I have moved

the topic,
The Style of Clothes You Like to Buy into this space (Topic 349),
from its previous location at Topic 351.

I have removed the label, "Unconfirmed
Topic" from Topic 339, A Place You Would
Like to Travel to. But I have a suspicion that there might be a
mistake here or with Topic 324, A Travelling Companion. If you
prepare for both topics you should be ok whichever topic is used.

I have also removed the label, "Unconfirmed
Topic" from Topic 350,Someone You Know Who
Has a Healthy Lifestyle. However, my suspicions about the accuracy of this
topic are stronger than for Topic 339. In other words, I strongly suspect
that this might be a mistake – I am taking off the "Unconfirmed
Topic" label simply because several people
have reported this topic.

Now that there is a new topic, Topic 349,The
Style of Clothes You Like to Buy, it is possible that Topic 295, An Item of Clothing Bought for You has been retired. But we
cannot yet say for sure that it has been retired.

Similarly, Topic 277,

An Interesting Job

might be retired soon since we now have Topic

346,A Job that Would Make the World
Better and since Topic 277 has been in use for more than a year. But it is
too early to say that it has already been retired.

May 20, 2011

Topic 278, A Film has been labeled as

(Probably no longer used).
The new "film" topic is Topic

341,A Foreign Film

.

On May 7 and 14, several people reported that Topic

279,

A Person You Helped

(3)

was
used, so it was probably still used. But everyone should pay attention in
case that topic is suddenly replaced by, "Someone who helped you".
They might suddenly change to this topic and still keep the Part 3 questions
that are being used for Topic 279, or many of the same questions. This
change might occur at the end of May or the beginning of June.

Similar to the situation with the
"help" topic, the current "gift" topic, Topic

298,A Gift You Gave (4)

might suddenly change to "A gift you received".

This change might occur at the end of May or the beginning of June.

On May 7, someone reported that
they got Topic 271, A Friend You Admire but this topic hasn't
been reported as used for the past ten tests.(http://bbs.51ielts.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=768741&extra=page%3D1&page=12
Post #210) This person quite
accurately described the Part 2 wording for Topic 271 and some of the Part 3
questions. I suspect this person didn't really get Topic 271 but instead got
Topic

288, An Old Friend or Topic

323,A Friend Who is a Good Leader. I think this
person couldn't remember many details from his or her test, so he or she
went to this website or to some other source, got the details
for Topic 271 (thinking this was the topic he or she got) and then wrote those details on the internet forum. I've
noticed
other people do that when they couldn't remember the
details of the topics they got. Nevertheless, people should be alert to this
topic, just in case it really has returned to the test.

I have changed Topic Topic 327 from "A historic building"
to "A historic place. This was after I saw a posting at
http://www.ielts-blog.com/category/recent-ielts-exams/ written by
someone in India who said his topic was "a historic place". I always
suspected that this was the real topic because it would be unusual for there
to be two topics in the test asking you to describe a building. (The other
is Topic 314.)

I think Topic 278, A Film, might be retired. I has rarely
been reported as used for many tests and the one or two times it was
reported might have been the Part 1 topic. However, there is nearly always a
"film" topic in the test for Part 2 so don't be surprised if another film
topic comes into the test soon.

Topic 328, "Your Personality" will stay on the list for
just one more test. If it is not reported in the next test, then it's gone.
It's highly unlikely to be a real Part 2 topic.

There was also mention of a topic, "A Family Event". That
is possible but there are several Part 3 sub-topics at the moment on the
topic of "family". I will wait longer before adding that as a current Part 2
topic.

May 4, 2011

I have now reversed the change I made to Topic 314 on
April 23. I think it was a mistake.

April 23, 2011

An important change was made to Topic 314. Previously, I
had this as, "Describe a school or university building" but
now I believe the correct topic is, "Describe a school or university
you would like to attend."

April 20, 2011

The wording of Topic 283 was changed from, "Something
you saved to buy" to, "Something expensive you bought".
(If you have or your family has a lot of money, you can buy an expensive
thing without needing to save up to buy it.)

Topic 287has been slightly changed from, "

Describe an important celebration (in your culture/country)"
to

"

Describe an important
traditional celebration (in your culture/country)." Someone who
did the test recently told me she is surethe word
"traditional" was in the Part 2 topic that she got. Even if she is mistaken, it
will be safer for you to prepare for this. For example, in China, National Day
is not a traditional celebration; it's a modern celebration.

March 30, 2011

Several people have report that they got the topic, "A
historic Building" although they usually don't give many details about this
Part 2 topic. So, I think there is one topic, Topic 327,A Historical Building and
(the previous)Topic 328,A Historic Place You Visitedis not the topic and has been
deleted.

March 22, 2011

Topic

304, An Interesting Subject waslabeled as

(Probably no longer used) because it hasn't been reported as used
since January 27.

Topic 329,A Famous Personhas been deleted because I am quite certain that people who reported
they got this topic really got Topic 296, A
Successful Person. It looks like "Famous People" is a Part 3
sub-topic for Topic 296.

It is still not clearwhich of the two
topics, Topic 327,A Historical Building orTopic 328,A Historic Place You Visitedis being used. It's possible both
are being used but, since there is already a topic about a building
(Topic

314,

A School or University Building

),
and since it would be unusual to have two Part 2 topics about a building, I
think Topic 328 is the more likely. It's possible that the topic of "historic buildings" is a
Part 3 sub-topic for Topic 328. Certainly, at least one of topics 327 and
328 is being used.

Topic278, A Film has not been definitely reported as a Part 2 topic for a
long time. I think that the times when it was reported after January 27 were
possibly reports about the Part 1 topic, Films, not the Part 2
topic. However, since there is almost always a Part 2 topic "Films" in the
test, I will wait one or two more tests before labeling it as Possibly no longer used.

Topic 307 has been changed from "Your
Favourite Room When You Were a Child" to, "

A
Room Where You Spent a Lot of Time as a Child".

March 7, 2011

In the March 5/6 test in China, the following topics were
not reported as used: 265, 266, 268, 269, 270, 272, 273, 274,
275 and 276. (See Part 2
topic usage page.) It has been a while since they were reported as used so now I
think they are (Probably no longer used)
and I have given them that label.

In addition to those topics, Topic
271, "A Friend Who you Admire" was reported as used but it was
in a list of topics used, without any details. In other words, it was
second-hand information. I think this was a mistake and it was really Topic
288 that was used. So I have also labeled this as (Probably no longer used).

As well as that, Topic 304, "An
Interesting Subject" has only been reported as a hint in the last
five tests. I actually think this topic has also been retired but I will
wait one more test before labeling it as "Probably no longer Used". For now,
I am giving it the "Possibly no longer used"
label.

Topic 267, "A Person You
Helped (3)" is continually being reported as used. I have moved it
to a new location, #279. From now on, this topic will only be updated at
this new location.

All of this information applies to
Mainland China. I don't have enough information to say that these same
topics have now been retired in other countries. But, from what little
information I do find, I would say that the situation is probably
the same all over the world.

February 28, 2011

The following information applies to Mainland China,
although it might apply all over the world. (I don't know very much about
the test in other countries.)

If you look at the page, Part 2
topic usage page, you'll see that several topics from May 2010 have not
been used in the past four tests in China. I think there's a good chance
that these topics have been retired but we cannot be sure of this,
especially since the topics have only been used for about 9 months. I have
labeled the topics that haven't been used for four tests as Possibly no longer used.
This is not as definite as (Probably no longer used).

There are also a few topics from
May 2010 that have not been used for three tests. I am labeling them as
Still in Use,
although it is possible that these topics have also been retired. It's your
choice whether to prepare for them or not.

Topic 267, A Person You
Helped is definitely still in the test.

Topic 277, An Interesting
Job seems to be still in the test but few people have been reporting
this topic in detail and several people have reported a topic, "Your
Ideal Job", but I think this is most likely a mistake.

February 22, 2011

I have labeled the following topics as (Probably no longer used):
Topics 243, 244, 248, 253, 255, 256, 257, 258, 262 and 264. They haven't
been used in the last three tests so I thinkthey have been
retired.

The Part 2 topic, "A Website", which was
previously at #314, has been deleted. It seems this topic was mistakenly
reported as a Part 2 topic.

A new Part 2 topic, "A
School or University Building (2)" has been added as number 314.

Although I have labeled some
topics as NOT
CONFIRMED AS A NEW TOPIC, I
think several of those will turn out to be real topics in the test right
now. It's mainly the wording that is not very clear.

If you look at the
Part 2
topic usage page, you'll see that there are several Part 2 topics from
May 2010 that have not been used in the past three tests. It's too early now
to say that these topics might have been retired early but this is a
possibility!

February 15, 2011

It is possible that Topics 243 to 264 have been retired.
But I will wait another test or two to see if the examiners use any of those
topics again before labeling those topics as (Probably no longer used).
In the meantime, I am labeling them as, Possibly no longer used.If you are going to
do one of the next two tests, to be extra cautious, you should at least have
a quick look at those topics, just in case they are used again.

The topic, "A Childhood Friend", which was
at number 311, has been deleted. It looks like this was a mistake and is not
a current topic.

The topic, "A Child You Know" is confirmed
as a current topic and was moved from number 324 to 311.

The topic, "A Friend Who is a Good Leader",
at number 323, is confirmed as a current topic.

Topic 280 has been changed from, "A person Who
Spoke a Foreign language" to simply, "A Foreigner",
although the basic topic wording is still about the same as before.

January 26, 2011

It's very possible that Topic

311, A Childhood Friend
does not exist but is actually Topic

321,

A Happy Childhood Memory (3).

We will have to wait a little longer to see if Topic 311 is reported again.

There are also some hints that the Topics,
A Stage of Your Life and, A Public Event have returned to the
test but no details have been supplied. So these hints might be mistakes. If
you want, you can have a look at Topics 168 and 241 for previously used
versions of these topics.

January 23, 2011

Previously, Topics 312, 315 and 316 were labeled as
NOT
CONFIRMED AS A NEW TOPIC
but it now looks like they really exist.

January 15, 2011

There might also be topics: a shopping center, a library, an unusual
experience, a museum

January 12, 2011

In addition to the new Part 2 topics that have been recently added to
Pages 61, 62 and 63, the following three topics might also be new. These
have not been added to the current list of topics because there is not
enough evidence that these new topics really exist.

Possibly Topic 114. A
Website has returned to
the test, or a similar topic has now entered the test.

Possibly there is a
new topic, "Describe a peaceful
place". If this topic exists, it is in contrast to Topic 282,
"Describe a place with a lot of noise".

Possibly there is a new topic, "Describe
some interesting news that you heard or read recently".